Tkacik Group
Information Processing in Biological Systems
How do networks built out of biological components – neurons, signaling molecules, genes, or even cooperating organisms – process information? In contrast to engineered systems, biological networks operate under strong constraints due to noise, limited energy, or specificity, yet nevertheless perform their functions reliably. The group uses biophysics and information theory to understand the principles and mechanisms behind this remarkable phenomenon.
How can cells in a multicellular organism reproducibly decide what tissue they are going to become? How do neurons in the retina cooperate to best encode visual information into neural spikes? How does the physics at the microscopic scale, which dictates how individual regulatory molecules interact with each other, constrain the kinds of regulatory networks that are observed in real organisms today, and how can such networks evolve? These are some of the questions addressed by the Tkačik group. About half of their time is dedicated to data-driven projects performed in close collaboration with experimentalists, and half on purely theoretical projects. Their goal is to develop theoretical ideas about biological network function and connect them to high-precision data.
Group Leader
Administrative Support
Team
Current Projects
Visual encoding in the retina | Genetic regulation during early embryogenesis | Collective dynamics | Evolution of gene regulation
Publications
Brückner D, Tkačik G. 2024. Information content and optimization of self-organized developmental systems. PNAS. 121(23), e2322326121. View
Hledik M. 2024. Genetic information and biological optimization. Institute of Science and Technology Austria. View
Nomura K, Rella S, Merritt H, Baltussen M, Bird D, Tjuka A, Falk D. 2024. Tipping points of space debris in low earth orbit. International Journal of the Commons. 18(1). View
Nardin M, Csicsvari JL, Tkačik G, Savin C. 2023. The structure of hippocampal CA1 interactions optimizes spatial coding across experience. The Journal of Neuroscience. 43(48), 8140–8156. View
Lombardi F, Herrmann HJ, Parrino L, Plenz D, Scarpetta S, Vaudano AE, De Arcangelis L, Shriki O. 2023. Beyond pulsed inhibition: Alpha oscillations modulate attenuation and amplification of neural activity in the awake resting state. Cell Reports. 42(10), 113162. View
ReX-Link: Gasper Tkacik
Career
Since 2017 Professor, Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)
2011 – 2016 Assistant Professor, Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)
2008 – 2010 Postdoc, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
2007 Postdoc, Princeton University, USA
2007 PhD, Princeton University, USA
Selected Distinctions
2023 ERC Synergy Grant
2020 Ignaz L. Lieben Award (ÖAW)
2018 HFSP Grant
2012 HFSP Grant
2003 Burroughs-Wellcome Fellowship, Princeton University
2002 Golden Sign of the University of Ljubljana
